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You are missing out on a lot. And I don't mean the social media apps, or any of that nonsense. Allow me to try and explain:

Maps: Knowing what's around me physically, up-to-date information, public transport routes, etc. I found some remote paths on CoMaps in the UK which I walked recently, without the aid of the app I would have not known about these.

AntennaPod: the wealth of information and interesting topics I've been exposed to via podcasts is hard to overstate.

Home Assistant: being able to control my home, optimise the energy usage, improve security.

AI: I can talk to an AI anywhere. Instantly upload a photo, for example I use this to identity plants.

None of these things try and draw my attention all the time - so they don't affect your focus. They are there when I need them, and then are in my pocket when I don't.

> You are missing out on a lot. > Maps: Knowing what's around me physically, up-to-date information, public transport routes, etc.

You are also missing out on a lot. In fact, there's an infinite number of things you, too, are missing out on.

Please elaborate....

Not the OP, but we have limited attention bandwidth. For everything the person advocated we spend our attention currency on (additional podcast information, location information, etc.) we are removing it from something else. It’s not that any of that is bad per se, it’s that attention is a zero sum game and we should be cognizant of where we spend it.

> Maps: Knowing what's around me physically, up-to-date information, public transport routes, etc. I found some remote paths on CoMaps in the UK which I walked recently, without the aid of the app I would have not known about these.

And I do something often almost no human in the developed world ever does; I get lost. I wander a bit. I give myself a bit of extra time so I can try alternative routes and see if I figure it out and maybe see a new part of my city along the way.

I look up maps in advance and print those when going somewhere the first time on a tight schedule, but that is about it. For the most part I just actually know my city.

Also research on Taxi driver brains indicates regular reliance on a GPS makes you as much as 20% more likely to develop Alzheimer's.

Turns out not using parts of our brains ever is bad for them.

> AntennaPod: the wealth of information and interesting topics I've been exposed to via podcasts is hard to overstate.

When I want music on the go I take a small standalone Rockbox media player. Can handle podcasts or years of music no problem. No internet on the go needed.

> Home Assistant: being able to control my home, optimise the energy usage, improve security.

I love Home Assistant and I optimize and automate it when I am at home, so I do not need to away from home for short periods. For long periods, I check it from a laptop at a hotel once a day or so and that is plenty.

> AI: I can talk to an AI anywhere. Instantly upload a photo, for example I use this to identity plants.

I use a notebook. I write down things that interest me. I do not need instant answers to every question. That leads to endless answers we remember few of. Better to be intentional with research that we still think matters in a day. Most of the things will not matter in a day, but there is a note just in case.

I once had google glass full time so I was never a second away from information and screens. I had every wearable that existed.

I am thankful for now not being reliant on any of it to be happy and productive on the go. I like to use computers intentionally at fixed locations so I can walk away from them and have a forcing function to exercise other parts of my brain.

I think people discount a lot of the upsides of the parts they are trying to “optimize” out of life.

To your maps example, some of my best road trips are not “optimized” but take two lane roads that are out of the way. Some of my favorite trips involve coming across places we came across by sheer happenstance. I also think boredom is the cocoon of creativity. But we have all but eliminated it from our lives when we constantly have a screen within arms reach.

I agree with the GP that GPS has opened new possibilities: some modern bikepacking routes were designed around a GPS. For example, there is simply no paper map that would safely get you along the 2000 kilometers through remote desert of the Baja Divide. The trail is not always easily identifiable, and not having a line on a screen to follow risks straying away from sources of water or help in the event of breakdown.

With regard to "GPS brain", a way to avoid it is to do OSM mapping while one is out and about. Then you are forced to get your bearings in a way that activates those parts of your brain, and in most cases you could backtrack or do the journey a second time even if the phone map were unavailable.

I go back and forth. It's useful to maintain certain social connections, which I find harder to do as I'm getting older (weird to say that, I am on the young xennial side).

This is the issue that I run into. I got rid of my facebook, but still have an instagram (very curated, but I get to see and stay in touch with friend's nonsense).

So it is a little hard for me to let that go as everyone becomes more and more spread out in the world. It's a weird soft 'push' of information that I am able to keep up with and enjoy.

Still, I see the ugliness of The Attention Economy...

It's weird finding a balance.

Almost all of it is nonsense. Ten years ago I was at a funeral where I found out the relatives were all on Facebook. I never saw the need till then so I signed up. Turned into a constant barrage of kids photos and someone standing in front of a statue while on vacation. But that's all gone away, rarely does anyone post, and I'm tempted to just delete the account cause now ask I see is nonsense reels and advertising.

I kinda wonder if politics is what has killed Facebook. Between my choice to block anybody who posts the boring team politics soundbyte of the day, and my unwillingness to post something that might invite that same kind of response ... I don't see much in my feed. And I bet that's true for a lot of other people.

But ... I do notice a lot number of people who just sit there watching reels. So FB is probably doing just fine.

Facebook declined even in countries that don't have high levels of political polarization. Younger generations in the West and new internet users in the developing world favoured platforms that were designed as mobile-first (Facebook, even with an app developed later, was not), since they rarely use computers. Connected with that change of interface was a preference for image posts, not long text, so Instagram and then TikTok overtook FB.

How do you ... Talk to people? How do you agree when and where to meet? Genuine question.

> I rarely carry any electronics at all and exclusively use cash in person to make me mostly digitally invisible IRL.

> Stopped using X and all big tech services.

This right here. I haven't given up my cell phone yet, but I run GrapheneOS on a Pixel without Google anything and only with a handful of basic apps (OSMand, K9, Home Assistant...). If something can't be done in the browser, I pass.

Don't forget that your car may also have a cellular modem and rat out your driving habits to dealers, data brokers and insurers.

> Don't forget that your car may also have a cellular modem and rat out your driving habits to dealers, data brokers and insurers.

This is why I never drive a car I cannot repair myself in a pinch that requires zero software or even a working battery to operate, which means low tech, manual transmission.

I see some locales where this could work. But here in Shanghai you are basically tethered to a phone + big tech. You could easily go about your WEEK and never talk to a real person. It’s actually really dystopian. Coming from self hosting etc. it is a completely different perspective. Exposing any content online requires a license, your modem and IP are connected to your ID etcetc. There is no privacy. Very sobering experience.

> Exposing any content online requires a license

You can get an ICP license easy with fake documents. Nonograph exists in China as "animal welfare" and "business to business" web portal even though it is for anonymous writing / leaks. I used to own the domain `秘密.网络` which literally means "secret[.]network".

> your modem and IP are connected to your ID etcetc

No different than America. Your modem and IP are tied to the billing contact.

> you are basically tethered to a phone

Weixin is a problem, but the other apps usually are not necessary.

What would happen if you self-hosted something? Prison?

Honestly… i dont want to find out. But yeah, prison, expulsion and 5 year travel ban is certainly on the menu

I get the motive but this is overdoing it. Sounds like a horrendous existence

I think describing it as horrendous is overdoing it. People have lived even more disconnected from devices except for the last 20-30 years and I wouldn’t call their existence “horrendous”

I notice you don't mention much about physical social interactions.

How do you meet new people and engage with your community if you don't have a phone or aren't using to use the corporate media apps? Is in person enough to get you by? Generally curious because not having a cellphone seems really hard or maybe that's just a misplaced anxiety on my part

Turns out all the methods humans used for the few hundred years before smartphones still work!

I met most of my friends at hackerspaces, board game nights, conferences, giving conference talks, parties, bars, etc. Put yourself out there in spaces where human beings of likely overlapping interests exist and you will make the friends that matter most. I first had a conversation with my wife of over a decade by tagging along with a bunch of strangers to a random pizza place. My wife did not use dating apps at all, so in person was the only way a guy could have met her.

I also open my house once a week to anyone I know, and host events every month or so. Met a lot of friends-of-friends that way.

And look, I get it. Doing all that is scary. I still have a lot of anxiety about hanging out with people I do not live with, and I do it anyway. Never regretted it once.

Spending time around other people in person makes us better people.

In many developed countries, the hacker events and board game nights are organized over Facebook groups; Facebook itself is dead, except for the events niche because people don't see a better place to announce these things; people aren't necessarily doing flyers posted on a message board like in the 1990s.

Also, in not all countries is it acceptable to talk to strangers in public, like your pizza place example. In Finland this will make people very uncomfortable, though you might get away with it if you are a obvious clueless foreigner (or an unusually charismatic foreigner). About the only place it is acceptable is bars after a certain level of inebriation, but that is not the kind of interaction many people will find worthwhile.

The Nordic countries have been like that for long years, but I think this taboo is spreading because young people in some Central and even Southern European cities, even with a history of cafe culture and large student populations, are complaining online about the difficulty of meeting anyone when out and about. Telling someone that they should just take the first step isn't necessarily a solution, because like climate change or recycling, this is maybe something that cannot be solved by idealistic individual action but requires policy changes.

I made new friends through an open source project. I attended BUG/LUG meetings and other tech events. There are plenty of alternative social events that you don't need a phone for. Email and even irc will do. I am a phone minimalist so its similar situation as I have no social media accounts.

My personal experience is I've had better luck meeting people thru physical real world events than thru phone apps.

Church, friendly local game store, kids sports and activities, the general category of "festivals".